Discovery potential of R-hadrons with the ATLAS detector

Abstract

The production of exotic heavy hadronic particles arises in several models for physics beyond the standard model. The focus is on R-hadrons, which are stable hadronized gluinos, predicted by certain supersymmetric models. Interactions and signatures of single R-hadrons are studied with the ATLAS simulation and reconstruction framework. The ATLAS fast simulation framework has been extended to include parameterizations for R-hadrons. Based on topological and kinematic variables only, the discovery potential of the ATLAS detector for R-hadron events produced in \(pp\to\tilde{g}\tilde{g}\), is studied for masses below 2 TeV/c². R-hadrons with masses as predicted by standard SUSY scenarios would be discovered already in the very early stages of the running of the LHC. The discovery reach of heavy gluinos, predicted by for example split supersymmetry models, extends up to at least 1.8 TeV/c² for three years running of the LHC at low luminosity.